Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

3-minute read
24 August 2023 | 19:24 CAT

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Xi Jinping, Cyril Ramaphosa, Narendra Modi and Sergei Lavrov at the BRICS summit

President Cyril Ramaphosa today announced that the BRICS group of nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will now boast the admission of six new countries from next year as the club of extensive and populous emerging economies seeks to reshape the global order. Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE will become full members from 1 January 2024.

The 2023 BRICS summit ended in Sandton in Johannesburg today, where Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met for the 2023 BRICS Summit to discuss various issues, including expanding BRICS and a new currency in opposition to the US dollar.

The expansion was a victory for China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who strongly backed the rapid addition of new members. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India was said to be concerned about adding nations close to Beijing; India and China have border disputes and tend to consider each other potential adversaries.

Xi Jinping called the bloc’s expansion “historic,” reflecting its determination to “unite and cooperate with developing countries.”

“[It will] inject new impetus into the BRICS cooperation mechanism and further strengthen the power of world peace and development,” Jinping said.

Meanwhile the choices by the current BRICS members contained a few surprises, the biggest being the addition of Iran, which joined three other Middle Eastern states: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Argentina and Ethiopia rounded out the half-dozen nations tapped for inclusion, while Indonesia, considered among the top candidates for admission, still needs to cut.

Political Analyst Dirk Kotze argues that while it is a very diverse group, there are striking factors.

“Argentina is a country which is economically in trouble at the moment. They have an inflation rate over 100 percent and have in the past been very much dependant on the American dollar and have used the American currency for quite some time,” Dirk added.

The commitment to greater use of local currencies fell short of the anti-dollar rhetoric heard before the summit, such as Brazil’s Lula floating the idea of a BRICS common currency as a trade unit.

Listen to the full interview on Your World Today with Mufti Yusuf Moosagie.